


amour fou

by aomame (heart_nouveau)



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, F/F, Light BDSM, Older Woman/Younger Woman, Paris (City), Suicide Attempt (not shown)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-13
Updated: 2017-01-13
Packaged: 2018-09-17 07:06:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9310529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heart_nouveau/pseuds/aomame
Summary: Thankfully Arthur marched in like a deus ex machina, crisp and neat even when laden with a box of textbooks, and kissed Mal fondly on both cheeks. “This is Mal,” he said, turning to Ariadne, “my grad school advisor, my muse, my everything. Mal, this is—”“Hello, darling. Ariadne and I have just met,” said Mal, with a darkly blossoming smile that left Ariadne blushing and retreating against the counter, robbed of words and entirely, utterly entranced.





	

 

Ten months prior, everything had started with Arthur. But that was so long ago, worlds away from what things had become, that it felt almost surreal to face him now in this late-night Paris hospital hallway.

Ariadne observed the worry lines writing themselves on Arthur’s face like a map, the way his entire body creased with characteristic tenseness. Arthur was always worrying about something. Yet for the first time that Ariadne could remember, Arthur’s concern was zeroed on her.

“I don’t understand,” he said finally, but that was untrue. Arthur was an intelligent man, and he knew exactly what he had seen in that hospital room.

Ariadne bit her lip so hard it almost drew blood. She hadn’t thought things would end up like this, having to explain a lie she hadn’t known she was telling. Then again, she’d dived into Mal’s arms and bed, if not mind, with a surprising lack of planning and foresight.

“So…” Arthur was frowning, as if by expressing his displeasure he could somehow make Ariadne produce an answer that satisfied him.

“We’re together,” she confirmed.

“You do know she’s married,” Arthur said bluntly, his face almost perfectly clean of emotion, and Ariadne’s stomach slipped as if she’d eaten something unpleasant.

“I didn’t,” she said. This was half of a truth. She’d seen the rings, silver and shining, that Mal kept in her purse but didn’t exactly hide. And yet she hadn’t asked.

Arthur pivoted, swinging his arms to stretch them, sharp shoulders drawn up under his tailored suit. He turned back to Ariadne. “I just don’t think this is good for you. She— This won’t be good for you.”

He rubbed a hand against his forehead, a single piece of dark hair falling out of line. Poor Arthur, always wanting things exactly in their place; what a shock this must be for him. But when Ariadne wanted something, she was used to building it: bridges to other people and reasons—excuses, sometimes—why she should be with them. Which may have explained why for someone so relatively young, she’d been with a remarkable amount of messed-up people.

“Ari, listen. You know I just want you to be happy. But this won’t be it. Mal is complicated.”

That was the understatement of the year, even coming from Arthur, who had subtlety down to a fine art.

“I know,” Ariadne said. “Arthur, I know.”

But she didn’t tell the rest of the truth, which was that being with Mal made her feel powerless, and that this was the most liberating thing she’d known in a long time.

 

 

Ten months prior Ariadne stood in the cluttered kitchen of Arthur’s tiny new flat, trying to decide the best way to organize things, which way was most _Arthur_. She had just stepped forward to set the final box on the kitchen counter when a voice made her glance up in surprise. 

“Pardon me, but the door was open.” The stranger standing in the door spoke in English, her French accent softening the words. She was so elegant in her dark dress that she might have come from another world.

Ariadne swallowed. She was sweaty, in jeans and a ponytail. “I—”

“Arthur told me he was moving today.” The stranger smiled, wrapping slim fingers around the neck of a wine bottle. “I’m Mal.”

“Ariadne.” This said hesitantly, as if she were uncertain of her own name.

“Ariadne,” Mal repeated, turning the word over slowly with her sweet voice. She looked Ariadne up and down. “What a unique name.”

Ariadne, who rarely blushed, felt the color flare in her cheeks like a brand. Thankfully Arthur marched in like a _deus ex machina_ , crisp and neat even when laden with a box of textbooks, and kissed Mal fondly on both cheeks. “This is Mal,” he said, turning to Ariadne, “my grad school advisor, my muse, my everything. Mal, this is—”  
  
“Hello, darling. Ariadne and I have just met,” said Mal, with a darkly blossoming smile that left Ariadne blushing and retreating against the counter, robbed of words and entirely, utterly entranced.

   


“Ariadne’s in architecture school,” Arthur bragged over drinks later, his voice cutting over the noise of the wine bar with fraternal pride. Mal stirred with interest, eyes boring into Ariadne as if she were a rare specimen to be acquired. Ariadne felt herself squirming. 

“Is that so?” Mal said, her voice throaty, and Ariadne felt that voice in every corner of her body. Mal’s lipstick was deep plum. Ariadne could almost taste it.

 

 

Four hours after they met Mal was pressing Ariadne up against the bar bathroom wall, kissing her like she might die without it. She devoured Ariadne, cupping Ariadne’s face powerfully in her hands. Ariadne moved to bring her hands up to touch Mal’s face in turn, but was stunned by the feeling of Mal’s strong hands closing over her wrists and pinning them back against the wall. Ariadne obediently stopped moving, like an animal that knows when it’s cornered.

“Do you know,” Mal breathed, “what it is to be a lover?”

She whispered in French and kissed Ariadne’s neck as Ariadne tilted her head up, mouth forming soundless gasps, feeling the shocks all the way down to her toes. She left plum stains all over Ariadne’s neck, like bruises. It would be hard to tell the difference, in the end.

 

 

Ariadne would have said _yes_ to that initial question of Mal’s, all precociousness and eagerness to please, the good, overachieving student she’d always been—but it became rapidly clear that anything she’d known before Mal was utterly incomparable to what came after. The world had been roaring color, oversaturated and almost too bright, and Mal dimmed it to shades of sepia, dimly colored in a smoky room.

It was better that way. Ariadne never knew it until she saw it, but it was all so much better with Mal.

The first time, Mal tied Ariadne to the headboard with silk scarves and ate her out until tears sprang to Ari’s eyes and she was whimpering, hips twisting off the bed. “Should I do that again?” Mal asked huskily, her voice thick and hungry, and Ariadne squeezed her eyes shut, tears leaking from the corners, and nodded with a shaky breath, the very air feeling scrambled in her chest.

And afterwards, Mal rolled away to smoke a post-coital cigarette, just like in old black-and-white Godard films. She offered Ariadne one, and Ariadne accepted.

Mal was like the stuff of fantasies, the experienced older woman everyone dreams of, simultaneously unknowable and utterly desirable. Ariadne felt so inexperienced by comparison that it was uncomfortable; Mal liked to tease her into a state of erotic confusion and arousal so heightened that it was painful. It was clear that Mal liked Ariadne not knowing what to do; she got off on it.

Mal was forceful, almost brutal. She liked to leave bruises. So many of Ariadne’s past partners had been so gentle with her, like they thought she’d break because of her petite size. Mal didn’t even seem to stop to consider it. She rolled Ariadne around like a toy. She grasped too tightly, bit too hard. Ariadne loved it.

It was a strangely comforting reversal of Ariadne’s usual role of all brains—she hardly had time to breathe and eat in between the demands of graduate school, but she managed to make the time for Mal. Whatever Mal wanted of Ariadne, she got.

It was irresponsible to surrender like this, for sure. But if she was living in a dream, then it was at least part nightmare, too; Ariadne was always anxious when she didn’t have all the answers, and now she had nothing but fistfuls of questions. What did Mal see in her, besides someone who was much younger and unspoiled? What did Ariadne possibly have to offer her?

 

 

Ariadne went down on Mal, smelling and tasting nothing but her, and when she was finished Mal pulled away from Ariadne’s attempt at a kiss. She pulled up the hem of her aubergine silk slip and wiped Ariadne’s mouth with a dark, almost tender look. “Now you may kiss me, _ma chérie_ ,” she said when she was finished, and Ariadne sank into her.  
  
Though they rarely had expository conversations, Mal had a way of learning the tiniest details of Ariadne’s life and never forgetting them. Conversely, Mal revealed very little about herself. She never let Ariadne see her when she was vulnerable or at her worst, and could go for days without calling or texting.

 

  
Ariadne surrendered to Mal in more ways than she even knew was possible. She had never tried bondage before but was almost appalled by how much she liked it. The twist of pain that jolted through her entire body when Mal fastened the nipple clamps made her go instantly wet. When Mal unclamped one and soothed the bruised pink peak, sucking it into her mouth, hard, it was entirely worth it. 

“You let me be so cruel to you,” Mal said almost curiously, and Ariadne couldn’t say for the life of her why. All she knew is that she liked it.

From Arthur Ariadne heard the details lacking in all her interactions with Mal, things that helped her fill in the blanks. Yet she never managed to tell Arthur what she was doing with Mal, that she and Mal were actually involved.

Mal was recently divorced; she lost custody. She was brutally sad, and could be cruel in ways that manifested themselves subtly. Ariadne suspected that Mal had lost custody for mental health reasons, and there were times when she could be so terrifically cruel, cutting Ariadne with such precision, that Ariadne felt like she could understand it. Mal simultaneously seemed to want to know almost nothing about Ariadne and then she would turn around and say things that cut to the bone, proving that she knew Ariadne in ways that didn’t quite seem possible. Mal could make her feel like the center of the world one moment, and absolutely nothing the next.  
  
Ariadne felt like she had to hide substantial parts of herself, the unglamorous side who still ate ramen when she was too tired to cook and fell asleep wearing boys’ underwear. Mal wore silk slips, and Ariadne hardly had any matching pairs of underwear—but that was all right, because Mal preferred Ariadne naked. For Mal, she could be perfect. For Mal, she was exactly who Mal wants and needed her to be. For Mal, she was Mal’s perfect little girl, never mind the fact that she was twenty-six years old and had worked herself to the bone to win her place as one of the top students in her architecture class at one of the best-ranked schools in France.  
  
Mal taught her how to surrender. Mal liked her helpless, and Ariadne liked it that way. She thought she liked it that way.  
  
Ariadne was so used to building the mazes and making the rules and subscribing to logic that for once it felt utterly welcome to find a puzzle she couldn’t solve. For once, someone else was making the maze for her. And it felt so good to be lost.

 

 

At some point Mal started trusting her more, and there were maternal, strangely mundane lulls in their relationship. Ariadne would come over after class, and Mal would cook dinner, simple French dishes, watching Ariadne eat as she sat at the table savoring her own glass of wine. She drew Ariadne a bath, crouched down at the side of the tub and quietly watching. Ariadne sat in the bath, damp tendrils of hair slicked against her face, knees drawn up to her chest. She let Mal bathe her. 

Sometimes Mal didn’t wear silk slips and lingerie; sometimes she wore simple cotton sweatpants. Sometimes they went to the movies together and held hands in the darkened theater. Sometimes they had sex and Mal kissed Ariadne fully, with concentration, looking at her, not as if Ariadne were a distraction. Sometimes things were almost normal.

(But Mal always had to have the upper hand. Until one day, she didn’t.)

 

 

At 10 p.m. one night Arthur called to say that Mal had hurt herself, and was in hospital. “It’s the kids,” he explained briefly. “She lost her appeal for custody.”

Ariadne couldn’t find words to speak.

“I, uh, needed to call you to go pick up some clothes from her apartment. I would’ve gone but…” Arthur’s voice caught a rough edge, and to hear it was startling. “They called me, and I don’t—there isn’t anyone else to call.”

 _It should have be me_ , Ariadne found herself thinking. _I should have been the one she called first._

“It’s okay,” she said, something twisting in her stomach. “I’ll figure it out.”

One step into that hospital room, the satchel full of clothes in her arms, and she hardly knew what to do. Mal stirred on the hospital bed, opening her eyes. She looked awful. “My girl,” she said, in a sweet rasp. “You came.”

She’d never told Arthur that they were involved. An electric look like a bruise passed over his face, he turned on his heel and left abruptly when he realized. Mal pulled Ariadne towards her for a kiss. Ariadne was shocked how fragile she seemed, and how their roles seem to be reversed. Mal was suddenly the child, and it was terrifying.

In the hallway, Arthur’s face was drawn and he was pacing. Ariadne was shocked by the helpless expression on his face. “Mal isn’t in a good place, Ariadne,” he said. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be involved with her unless you know what you’re doing.”

“I know,” she lied. But she walked out of the hospital doors with the harsh taste of cigarette smoke on her tongue, and she knew that it was going to be much harder than it sounds to quit Mal, even a little bit.

Because Mal needed her. Because Mal had taught her to be a lover, and that was something Ariadne couldn’t unlearn. Because she couldn’t unlearn _Mal_ , or the feeling of being cared for and confused and lost in a maze that wasn’t of her own making.

How could she ever find her way out?

How could she ever want to?

 

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written 2013-4.


End file.
